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Pharma Companies United By a Need for Common Data Models

Posted on October 18th, 2017 by Betsy Davis in Pharma R&D

There is nothing that pharmaceutical companies guard more fiercely than their intellectual property. Devising and patenting the next big wonder drug is every company’s dream, and the revenue generated from those cherished successes help fund the research that leads to future innovations. But sometimes it is worth it for major firms to let down their guard a bit to consider areas where knowledge sharing might do them—and the entire scientific community—more good than harm. That’s the idea behind The Pistoia Alliance, which has brought together heavy-hitters like GSK, AstraZeneca and Roche for pre-competitive collaboration around common R&D obstacles.

Nowadays, this kind of cooperation is especially important where data is concerned. In the age of big data, the amount of available information is multiplying by the minute. Data is everywhere, coming from numerous sources in a variety of formats. If this valuable data is to be effectively managed and used by life science organizations, it’s important that we start seeing more standardization. Common models that allow for the integration of data will be better for everybody.

Read this article to find out how Elsevier has been helping the industry overcome some data-related challenges by donating its Unified Data Model to The Pistoia Alliance.

All opinions shared in this post are the author’s own.